- Thursday, January 28, 2016 12:02 PM
- DisneyDan
Hello everyone,
In December Jon and I went to National Harbor in Maryland for one of our annual festive traditions - to see the ICE! display and attend the character dining meal at the Gaylord hotel there.
ICE! is a special event held at multiple Gaylord hotels across the country, on an annual basis. In the past Jon and I have attended experiences themed to Shrek, the Grinch, Frosty the Snowman, and this year, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. I wrote a report for our 2014 experience,
which you can read here on the Character Central blog.
This year the character dining was themed with the ICE! theme (last year the two were not connected), which was Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. For those who don't know, it's an old classic stop motion animation film.
The character dining in 2014 was really exceptional, and we were really looking forward to a similar experience this past year, but unfortunately it was somewhat a disappointment. As always, the characters and staff were outstanding, but the meal itself was a little underwhelming, and there were only two characters present, which was the biggest disappointment of all. In attendance were Kris Kringle and Topper the penguin.
The Gaylord National's Christmas offerings are branded as Christmas on the Potomac, and under that one hat falls the ICE! event, the character dining, the Christmas decorations, tree and fountain show, as well as gingerbread decorating and some other small activities. We hung around in the wonderful lobby atrium in the evening to catch the fountains doing their musical number, which was really pretty.
For the past few years, the hotel appears to have not been able to figure out where it wants to locate the ICE! event. This past year, the access to it was via the convention centre (in 2014 it was through a tiny store in the lobby atrium). The line to get in was long, which was odd since all the tickets are timed entry. Eventually we got in, of course, and we spent about half hour inside, exploring the story of Kris Kringle.
Near the end there is always an ice slide that you can actually go down. It's probably my favourite part of the whole experience, and I go down it at least once every year!
Just before the finale scene, there is a small section detailing how the ICE! event came to be, and the work and craftsmanship that goes into it.
At the very end is a small scene depicting the traditional Christmas Story. It's well done, but clearly not my favourite part of it.
Finally, we stopped by the gingerbread decorating area and said hi to the gingerbread man that was hanging out there! Last year he looked a little different and was actually Gingy from the Shrek movies, but this year the Dreamworks theme had been dropped, and so Gingy was no more.
Overall we did have a nice time. We like the ICE! event a lot, but this past year were just a bit disappointed with the character dining.
Have a great week everyone,
Dan.